


A Crown of Winter

by myrish_lace



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Violence, Chronic Pain, Dissociation, F/M, Graphic Description, Injury, Major Character Injury, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sansa recounts what Ramsay did to her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-07 17:24:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11628327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrish_lace/pseuds/myrish_lace
Summary: Sansa is safe in Winterfell, but the damage done to her body by Ramsay causes her constant pain and won’t let her move beyond the past. Jon notices her distress, and asks her about it. Sansa is furious, and recounts what she suffered at Ramsay’s hands. She orders Jon never to speak of it again. He doesn’t, but he sends her a letter. His words offer Sansa a small ray of hope.





	A Crown of Winter

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags! This was painful to write, and it's probably painful to read. For Jonsa Exchange.

The pain in her back was low, and throbbing, a dull thudding ache.   
  
She'd felt the same sensation when she'd met Littlefinger before the battle for Winterfell started. The freezing cold had sharpened it. She'd told Littlefinger on that wintry day, as the snow fell around them,  that she could still feel what Ramsay had done to her. At that very moment, inside her body. And not in her tender heart.

She dreamed, sometimes, of seeing the long, bright arc of Brienne's sword slicing the air and Littlefinger's blood staining the ground in that small cabin. It would have been justice. Unlike what Ramsay had done to her, it would have been swift.  
  
His last word would have been "Cat," she knew, a soft whisper as he finally gave up his miserable life. He'd cling, to the last, to the illusion that she was a cipher for her dead mother.

But she had kept herself from that satisfaction, because she had needed his army.

Now here Littlefinger sat, like a cat with a mouse at Winterfell, refusing to leave. He was only a few seats down from her today, in the great hall where they were gathered for dinner.

Littlefinger caught her eye, over the tables laid out with a meager spread of soup and bread. He smiled. 

She smiled in return, anger seething in her heart, then turned to the broth before her. The small rotation caused a stab of agony in her back, like a pick made of ice jabbed into her spine. She fought hard, steeling herself. She tried to grab hold of the fortress she retreated to in her mind when the pain was like a brutal wind ripping through her. But she couldn’t keep from stiffening. She prayed no one would notice. Especially not Jon, who was next to her.

  
“All right?” Jon’s voice was low and soft, but there were those who could hear it. She knew it, and he didn't.   
  
Did Jon have to do this? Have to ask how she was, at moments when she was vulnerable? Moments when she needed to go far away in her head just to keep her own peace?

“I'm fine, Jon. Just a little tired.” Her tone was off, too bright, but she didn't expect Jon to notice.

He frowned, but went back to his soup. He ate quickly, automatically, like a man used to taking sustenance where he could find it. Sansa was reminded of the stringy, lumpy stew she and and Brienne had picked through at Castle Black. Jon and his men had polished it off without a second thought. Edd had noticed her distress then. Jon had remained oblivious.

She wished that same blindness would steal over Jon now. And, for a blessing, he didn't ask after her further during the meal.

As the plates were cleared away, Sansa rose, and almost stumbled as the muscles in her lower back seized. She grabbed onto the back of her chair, her knuckles white.

Only a few seconds, she thought desperately. Surely,  surely, no one saw.

Jon’s hand was at her elbow. “Can I help you?” His brow was furrowed and she thought she saw concern in his dark eyes.

Maybe pity.

“No,” she said, more forcefully than she intended. Jon drew back. “Thank you for your concern, Jon. I am only tired.”

Jon wouldn't let it go. “At least let me walk you to your room.”

They would need to make up an excuse, didn't Jon see that?

She could tell by the set of his shoulders, though, that he wouldn't give this up. She wasn't the only stubborn member of her family.

“Of course, Jon, we can go over the supplies in the kitchens. I've finished that inventory you asked for.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Littlefinger swivel his head.

There was a slight crease on Jon’s forehead, but he nodded.

Sansa took the arm Jon offered, and was loathe to admit she was grateful for it. The pain lessened, as it did sometimes when she walked. Soon she and Jon had only each other for company in the torch-lit corridor. There was silence between them. She she could hear the sound of his boots on the stone floor.

When they arrived at her chambers, Jon was about to bid her good night. Littlefinger had spies here in Winterfell, however. So Sansa bade Jon come in, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do. She had to explain the “inventory” of the kitchens, after all.

Once they were inside, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. She didn’t want him to stay a moment longer than he had to.

“Thank you Jon. There’s no inventory-”

“Of the kitchens, yes, I picked up that much, Sansa. ” She thought she saw the corner of his mouth quirk. He sobered as he saw her set herself carefully into her chair at the table by the fire. He took a step towards her.

“Sansa, please, if there’s anything-”

She felt another burning stab near the base of her spine and suddenly it was all too much. The front she maintained for Littlefinger, Jon, and the rest of them crumbled.

“Must you Jon?

Jon’s forehead creased. “I only meant-”

Sansa rose to her feet.

“Do you want to hear it told to you like a bedtime story? Why I wince when I walk? Why I’m in pain? It didn’t happen long ago and far way, Jon, it happened here in this very castle.”

She closed her eyes briefly. She heard Ramsey tear the fabric of her wedding dress. She saw herself fall to the bed in slow motion, and Ramsay pounce on top of her. He was another cat with a mouse. A killer with a shiny new toy.

She tried to keep calm. Dignified. She started again. “Ramsay hurt me. Over and over and over, taking pieces of myself away with each blow to my body. I'd lay on the bed and try to pray, to the old gods and the new, for relief, and I’d only cry. The sheets were covered with blood and seed each morning. Each morning the servants took them away. So Ramsay would have a fresh surface to paint, do you see? He was an artist, of sorts.”

Jon had gone pale.

“I finally built a palace in my head, a place I went away to, when he used me. So I could claim the small victory of keeping my mind away from him.”

She remembered how infuriated he’d been the first night she’d found the key to her survival. His vile breath was hot on the back of her neck. She was peering at her fingernails, which were caked with dried blood. She’d scratched her wounds in her sleep again. He was twisting her back, and ordering her to _sing, sing for me, little bird bitch._

Sansa had felt a peculiar floating sensation. The room had started to recede. Ramsay’s face faded from view and she wasn’t in her body, anymore, she was above it, watching the scene play out with a kind of detached curiosity. There, she’d thought, that bite will bruise in the morning, but I don’t care, I don’t have to care, because I’m far away from this place.

_How he’s hurting that pathetic girl has nothing to do with me._

Ramsay had been livid. He might have even beat her unconscious - she couldn’t recall.

“He hated it, my palace, Jon, the place I made up where I could escape. He'd cut me, to keep me screaming, so he’d know I was still with him, there in that room.

Sansa raised her chin. Her hands were trembling. “I wasn’t though, Jon. I gave him his song, and took myself away, where no one could touch me.”

Jon’s eyes were full of tears. Sansa felt sick. She didn’t want his sympathy. She only wanted him to leave her alone.

“It's my pain Jon. Mine. No one else's. I've earned it. I'll keep it and I'll have no one know of it. Because when you ask me….”

She took a deep breath, to try to get herself back under control.

“When you ask me, Jon, I - I crack again, I crack _open_ , can't you see that? And I can't afford to. Not now, not with the winter here, with the war, with what we still have to win.”

Jon had taken a step toward her and she help up her hand. _Don't you dare_. She was pleased her hand didn't waver.

He stopped, swaying on his feet. But he didn't move and he didn't speak. He held himself like a soldier, at the ready. He wanted to run to her, no doubt, try to hold her or comfort her somehow.

Try to fix her.

“I hate this weakness, Jon! If I could find it, pin it down, I'd cut it out of me, do you understand? I'd cut it out, and gladly. No matter the cost. But I can't. So he still wins a little every day. Every day that I hurt. He wins even more each time I cry.  So s-stop asking. Stop asking how you can help. You can't.”

She balled her hands into fists.

“You can't fix me, Jon. Nothing this far broken can be fixed. Not by you, not by me.”

She stumbled to the bed and sobbed, deep, heaving sounds that were loud in the small room.

“Leave,” she choked out, knowing one of the few things she could count on was Jon obeying her. She dimly heard the door close behind him. She endured her first night of hot, ugly sobbing in recent memory. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks.

She thought she'd left this kind of crying behind, on the stone floor of the chambers where Ramsay had trapped her. She'd felt a coldness and detachment creep into her bones as she built her fortress and she'd welcomed it like an old friend.

Now it was back, thanks to Jon. Thanks to his questions and his kindness. She despised him for it.

Jon had broken her crown of winter. She'd been safe, in her palace. Now she was melting, snapping, creaking and cracking open like a river, like a flood.

***

Brienne knocked on the door of her solar the next morning.

“My lady.”

“Come in Brienne.” Brienne gave her a small bow. She looked uncomfortable.

“What is it?”

“Jon came by. “He gave me a scroll. He told me…” A faint line crossed Brienne's brow. “He told me to guard it with my life. And to ask you, first, whether you wanted to read it.”

“And if I said no?”

“He told me to burn it, my lady.”

 _Burn it then_ , she almost said.

But she heard Jon's low, soft voice at dinner. _All right?_

The damage was already done. And a letter - a letter she could read, when she wanted.

The dull ache in her back crept up on her again.

“Give it to me please, Brienne. And build up the fire.”

Heat sometimes helped the pain yield. And when it didn't, she could lose herself by staring into the flames. It wasn't as foolproof or as powerful as her fortress. But it helped.

Brienne stacked the logs carefully and took her leave, throwing a worried look over her shoulder. But she’d traveled long miles with Sansa, and knew when to keep her silence.

Sansa sat looking at the direwolf stamped into the red wax for a long time.

I can burn it, when I'm done, she thought.

She snapped the seal and unrolled the paper.

_Sansa,_

_I’ve never met someone as strong and fierce as you are. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. I think I understand what you want me to do. I won't ask you about it, Sansa, though it breaks my heart to see you in pain. I've seen warriors die on the battlefield with a tenth of the strength you have._

_I want you to know that, to me, you were never broken. Ramsay died at your hand. You were too much for him. You are whole and complete and beautiful and you always will be, in my eyes. When I look at you I see a queen. I'm yours to command._

_-Jon_

Sansa read the letter again, then tossed it into the flames. She watched the edges curl and burn until Jon’s words were no more than ash in the hearth.

He was a fool. The risk he'd taken, writing down how Ramsay had died at her hand-

But he had told Brienne to guard the letter with her life. And to burn the letter if she hadn't read it.

At least he knew what was expected of him.

***

Jon and Sansa barely spoke, over the next few weeks. Jon was true to his word, and kept his questions and his kindness to himself. Sansa resolved to put the issue behind her.

When she woke in the mornings, though. she'd see Jon's words swim before her eyes, in the moments between sleep and waking.

_Strong._

_Fierce._

_Never broken._

One day she felt the sun on her face as she opened her eyes. Blue sky. It was still freezing outside, but she gazed through the window for a long time, watching the golden light spread across the castle. She could see storm clouds in the east. This rare light would last a few hours at most.

She dressed slowly and carefully. For the first time, she looked at her back in the mirror before donning her gown. At the rough, red scars that puckered her flesh. They had scabbed, and bled, and scabbed again. The edges were jagged, and hideous, and growing fainter.

She'd been a Queen of Ice once, in a palace far away.

Ramsay had never breached those walls, and Ramsay was gone.

She had another palace now, of sorts, here at Winterfell.

She could try to be a queen again.


End file.
